Rendered fat from Wellness Meats - buyer beware.

[Raw Kyle]

I got a bunch of pemmican from Wellness Meats and left a few bars in my desk drawer at work only to find them spoiled a couple of weeks later. I was under the impression that they lasted forever, or at least years. The plastic sleeve was bulging with gas from the obvious microbial growth on the pemmican, not obvious from looks as much as from smell. It wasn't a very bad smell, but it was obvious there was some growing things in there and I wasn't too into trying it out. I have the rest in my fridge and found one of the bar with honey and cherries going a little bad yesterday. The ones with just meat seem fine still though.

[PaleoPhil]

My Wellness Meats tub of pemmican got moldy too. I had stored it in the fridge for some days, which may account for it. Even after cutting off all the edges for a good inch or more and keeping it out of the fridge, the mold came back and I had to throw it all away. The Indians used to seal off their rawhide bags of pemmican with a layer of fat. Maybe that sealing is required to get the indefinite storage without spoilage that people claim for pemmican.

[lex_rooker]

US Wellness tells you that you must keep their tallow and pemmican frozen or it will spoil.  My experience with their products is the the same in that, not only was my pemmican way to salty to eat, it spoiled quickly when left in my desk drawer at work.  I ordered a 5 lb tub of their tallow and was unimpressed as well. 

John, of USW, admits that the meat used in the pemmican is not fully dehydrated so the moisture will cause it to spoil quickly if not kept frozen.  Interesting in that the whole point of pemmican is to provide a food that will keep for many months without the need for refrigeration.

I've talked with John and I think he is a good and honest rancher, but he doesn't seem to know a great deal about the technical aspects, or USDA regulations, related to what goes on in the packing house once his cows leave the ranch.  He's also prone to tell you what you want to hear rather than take the time to research the nitty gritty details.

Lex

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, John seems to be a busy man, probably well-intentioned but overwhelmed. I also bought the tub of tallow and noticed that it has the same off-taste I don't care for that his pemmican has--so I think that's the main source of it, rather than the salt or jerky. I'm happy for the other people that like it, and maybe it's just a matter of a gamey taste I have to get used to, but at present it's not for me. I wish US Wellness well and hope their products improve with time, but I will be trying Slanker's the next go-round. [And, no, I don't work for Slanker's and haven't even tried their products yet, but Lex's opinions carry a lot of weight with me. He hasn't steered me wrong yet and his pemmican was much milder-tasting than USW's.]

I also recently tried eating plain supermarket marrow fat and noticed it is pure white and has no significant taste--kind of like hard cream. It's on the opposite side of the spectrum of the strong-tasting USW tallow and pemmican, with Lex's mellow pemmican in between. Marrow is supposed to be the caviar of pemmican fat, and I can see that if the wild/pasture-fed stuff is anything like the supermarket stuff. People also say that intramuscular fat tastes even better, but that is not true pemmican fat, of course, and doesn't contain as much of that healthy saturated fat! 

John should offer to hire you, Lex.

[lex_rooker]

John should offer to hire you, Lex.

That sounds an awful lot like a JOB.  I had one of those for about 42 years and that was plenty.  I'm very happy in retirement.   As the old song goes:

I'm busy doing nothing,
Working the whole day through,
Trying to find lots of things not to do.

Busy going nowhere
Isn't it just divine,
I'd like to be unhappy,
But I never can find the time!

Lex